A New Beginning
by celizabeth345
Summary: His eyes wandered back and forth, his breathing getting heavier and faster. His car was pinning him down, and he couldn't feel his leg. "Please," he prayed, "please God."


Title: A New Beginning

Rating: T

Warning: PTSD triggers – crash, amputation, PLP, etc. Slight AU, Doc is alive.

Summary: His eyes wandered back and forth, his breathing getting heavier and faster. His car was pinning him down, and he couldn't feel his leg. "Please," he prayed, "please God."

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><p>Chapter One: The Consequences<p>

Lightning was in shock, how could this happen to him? He was at the peak of his life; Sally was 8 months pregnant, he was recently married, he won the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, and he was on his way to win his fifth Piston cup when his life changed. He was ready to become a father, and Doc finally agreed to become an ambassador for McQueen enterprises.

Of course it had to all come crashing down.

He felt blood on his face, but he was too tired to wipe his face. How did he get out of the car? Lightning turned his head; he could see three other racers on the ground, and three racecars. The green car with stickers was in flames, the slow burn traveling onto the grass. Lightning tried to call out for Chick, but he couldn't feel his voice.

Chick wasn't moving.

He could see the mangled mess of Junior's car right in front of it, the back end completely tore off and Junior lying face down on the grass, his brown hair stained with blood, just like Chick's. Todd was on the opposite side of them, on Lightning's left. Todd's red car was upside down with Todd in it, the glass shattered everywhere.

The distant sound of sirens wailing in the background was in the back of his head, the panic finally started to set in. He moved his head up, looking at his own stock car. The car was upside down with the driver side mostly ripped off, the seatbelt broken. His helmet was off to the side somewhere, but he noticed how his left leg was bent at the knee, and his right was pinned below the knee.

Lightning started to try to pull his leg out, but he couldn't feel it. His eyes wandered back and forth, his breathing getting heavier and faster. He took on account of happened. He was in a crash, and three other racers he could see and God knows how many more were hurt; his car was pinning him down, and he couldn't feel his leg. "Please," he prayed, "please God."

He was praying, he didn't know what he was praying about. All he knows is that his body hurt except for his leg, and he was losing consciousness. The ambulance comes closer and closer, and faster and faster.

As the ambulance finally reached him, he noticed that there was a very inside of his car, spreading fast and towards him. The EMTs seemed to work even faster as his pants caught on fire, the pain of the fire reaching him and Lightning cried out.

The seemly random gush of water came out of nowhere, leaving also his legs soaked and a temporarily relief on his burns. Lightning didn't feel the pressure off of his leg as the car was lifted, and he was lifted onto a gurney.

In the ambulance he didn't pay attention to the EMTs, focusing on Doc the best he could without making himself too dizzy and sick.

"Kid, kid I'm here. Don't worry, we're _I'm _going to take care of you, alright? Just breathe, and let the doctors do their thing." Doc held his hand tightly, squeezing every now and then when they hit a bump. Doc was discussing with the EMTs as they hook him to IVs and other things Lightning couldn't possibly describe.

". . . Weight of the car. . ." Lightning struggled to hear the discussion, only being able to hear bits and pieces, "metal . . . straight to . . . bone . . . amputation."

Hearing about the treatment, Lightning started to panic, shaking his head back and forth, reaching his unoccupied hand to the tube down his throat. The EMTs struggled to calm him down, and Doc held his head and looked at him by standing over him so he wouldn't move his neck.

"Everything will be alright, kid. I will be in there every step of the way, Lightning." Hearing his name, he started to calm down, grabbing Doc's hand on his face and squeezing his hand. Doc looked up, and told the EMTs to sedate him and in a few minutes, Lightning felt the weight on his shoulder lift and he lost consciousness.

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><p>Lightning groaned his throat scratchy and his left leg was sore. He furrowed his brows and swiped his hand at the voices trying to greet him.<p>

"Lightning, you-a awake?"

"Stickers . . ."

"Bud, ya need to wake up."

"Kid, just open your eyes. We need to do a checkup."

Frowning, he opened and covered his eyes, removing them slowly as he just adjusted to the light when Doc dimmed them.

"Kid, do you remember anything?" Opening his mouth, all that came out was a croak, so he nodded instead and sipped on a straw and sucked on an ice chip. Doc opened his mouth but a knock on the door cut him off.

"Hello, Mr. McQueen, I am Doctor Ross and I am your attending surgeon. These are my interns Dr. Xo and Dr. Williams. Also this is my orthopedic fellow, Dr. Johnson." Ross smiled at him, and Lightning gave her a shaky smile. Ross turned serious, and turned to her interns.

"Williams, present please." The bambi-like intern rushed to open his mouth and presented his information with a rush.

"Owen McQueen, preferred name Lightning. Age is 27, height is 5'11. Lightning was admitted into the ER for extensive crush injuries to his right leg and burns to both legs. He has a mild concussion and was intubated on the field and sedated on the ride do to possible panic attack.

"His right leg was in surgery for around 4 hours to remove a piece of scrap metal that had nearly cut through and through. Lightning's leg was treated for removal of metal was given a tetanus shot and both legs are wrapped and regulated for infection." Bambi finished his ramble with one breathe, and ended with a big breathe.

"Good. Xo, present his past medical history." The calmer doctor smiled, her eyes wrinkling with her eyes.

"Lightning had an appendicitis surgery when he was 15 years old, no complications; and had his wisdom teeth taken out when he was 16, no complications. At 18 years old, he was sent to the ER for an emergent abdominal hernia surgery, no complications. He is allergic to oranges and spearmint oil." Ross nodded in confirmation to both his interns and they both sighed in relief.

"As you already are aware, but I will say it otherwise. We are a teaching hospital, and if you are uncomfortable with interns regulating you, we always double and even triple check our interns work." He smiled again, his white teeth a big contrast to his dark skin and green eyes.

"Now, we have to discuss the treatment about your legs. On your left, the burns are mostly second degree and will be cleaned regularly and we will discuss about the skin grafts with our lead plastics doctor at a later date, when we fix your right leg.

Your right leg was severely crushed, and a piece of your car sliced through the bone, and it was not clean. The bones are completely shattered, and during surgery you lost complete blood loss to your leg." Dr. Ross stopped, looking him in the eye.

"What . . . what does that mean?" Lightning croaked, popping another ice chip in his mouth. Ross took a deep breath, and sat down on the bed.

"It means our best option is amputation from the knee down." Ross explained slowly, putting a hand on Lightning's shoulder. "The infection in your leg is getting worse very quickly, you barely have any blood circulating through your leg and the tissue is dying very quickly."

"Are there any other options?" Lightning asked, squeezing Sally's hand as she leaned over to hold his hand, the other on her extended belly.

"Very little, and all have very low success rates due to the extensive injuries. Every second the tissue is dying, and the blood circulation is getting lower and lower. We need to go into surgery immediately as there in no massive traumas we are currently respond to, and we have many ORs are available. We need to either remove the leg immediately, or do the other options to try to save the leg." Lightning looked at his hands, and his bandaged legs.

"What's the success rate about the other option?"

Ross was silent for a few seconds. "Less than 5%; we would replace the damage skin with skin from your current donor and we put pins and needles to set the bone for healing, and replace the nerves and veins to regain mobility and circulation. However, there is a chance your body would reject donor skin, nerves, and veins and we would have to do emergency amputation instead."

Lightning didn't and couldn't think, Doc must've asked them for looked for the other options and a donor while he was out. "Who's the donor?"

Ross answered him immediately. "Todd Marcus."

"Todd? Oh god, is he dead?" Lightning shouted, panicking about his friend.

"No, he isn't but he is willing to donor skin from his thigh and the nerves from his calf. The veins would be made from an artificial element, and would do the same function as your normal veins would."

"Let's do it, I'm ready and I . . ." Lightning drifted off, squeezing Sally's hand. "I want the surgery."

Ross nodded, and told his interns to prep him for surgery and Todd for surgery.

Francesco squeezed his shoulder, and wished him good luck and Mater repeated his actions but with a hug. Sally held back tears, claiming that the hormones from the pregnancy were affecting her emotions, and kissed him good luck.

Doc stayed a few minutes, silent the entire time. After squeezing his hand, Doc left to put his surgical scrubs so that he could watch surgery from afar.

Counting down from ten, Lightning felt himself fall into unconsciousness and never realized that when he woke up, his life would be completely different.


End file.
